Finally made some progress on Minardi M193 cockpit. I used Modelers D923 CF decal to cover entire surrounding and coated with semi-gloss coat. Dash was covered with SMS CF decal. Seat was sprayed with SMS texture spray paint and then covered with flat black. Result looks quite pleasing. Seat belt was done with Modelers 1/20 seat belt set. Very minor wiring (only 1 wire ). Next part will be brakes, uprights, suspension, transmission and undertray... Enjoys..

I drove to Anaheim last Fri to attend IPMS National 2007. My F2001B won the open wheel competition 1/32-1/20 scale category and Model Cars Magazine Editor's Pick. I am so happy about it.

IPMS National contest is hugh, much bigger than Tamiya/Con. Tons of aircraft and armors... plus sci-fi that you don't get to see them at Tamiya/Con.

Entry fee is not cheap, I paid $25 IPMS membership + $40 contest entry fee. Parking at Marriot hotel is $20/day + hotel... Ouch.. But I had never been to IPMS National before, so I counted this as my contest experience. I will soon post more pic that I took on the show on Modelersite.com.

Enjoys,

Some progress on the Minardi. All CF decal are applied on front and rear wing. Clearcoating and polishing is done on front wing. This time I used Tamiya polishing compound and modeling fax after micro-mesh polishing. Result is pretty good. Rear wing is more difficult to polish because I didn't separate the wing end plate from lower wing element. big mistake.. so I will clear coat it again and only polish the outer end plate surface. The mirros are CF-ed as well. At the time I am writing this blog, rear wing and mirrors are just clearcoated and being baked in the dehydrator.

I bought a Gunze leveling thinner as suggested by Master Johnson and it works much much better than regular Gunze lacquar thinner.

Guess what I bought again. I bought this 97 Schumy flat back helmet. This one has a flat back aero shape. In fact, Schumy only worn this in pre-season testing and switched back to regular round shape helmet in most of the 97 season. I put this 1:1 helmet along with the 1:8 Minichamps 96 version and they look very cool. This flatback aero helmet is my favorite helmet.

Enjoys,

Made some progress on Minardi M193. I put CF decal on the front wing with Modelers D923 CF decal. It took me 6 hours to finish them all. Modelers CF decal is good. It reacts very well with Gunze decal softener. The toughest part was to decal front wing end plate.. I need to use 4 pieces to cover the whole end plate. I will move on to work on rear wing. After that, I will gloss coat both front and rear wing..